Beach CruisersDo you love balloon tires and fenders? Do you love riding the simplicity of a single gear and coaster brakes or a single gear cluster? Do you love the classic curves in the tubing of a cruiser that takes you back to the 1950's and 1960's, stylistically? Here's your home! Welcome to the Beach Cruisers and Cruisers forum!

I do believe that Electra makes a quality product but I find them kind of boring somehow. You mentioned "ride for now, then build upon later", no matter what you do to a Sparker it will always look like a Sparker. The Trek on the other hand I have seen transformed into something that looks completely different than the original.

$300 buys a lot of customizing that you can do yourself, the Sparker is like a custom bike that has been customized for you, then produced in huge numbers.

Go for the Trek. Lower initial cost makes room for improvements of any sort later. You can do anything with a frame, but its nice to have all the parts to make it a cruiser again when you're done. Have you seen any used?
This one looked bad when I got it. I painted and "beefed" it up.

I would go with in Electra. Trek has gotten out of the cruiser market, no longer building, selling or supporting them. So if you had a frame issue you just might be stuck! Look around, I'm sure you can get a better price on a year end close out on a new Electra Sparker Special. Also this time of the year there are great deals on Craigslist for bikes that are like new at 1/2 or less the price of new.